Warne to remain a five-day wonder

Shane Warne has confirmed he has no plans to resurrect his one-day career for Australia, contrary to rumours that his one-year drugs ban during 2003-04 might have refuelled his appetite for the short game.

Asked whether he might overrule his own one-day retirement, Warne replied: "At this stage, no. I'm pretty happy just playing Test cricket, and it also gives me the chance to play a lot of games for Victoria." Warne last wore Australia's green-and-gold colours against England at the MCG in January 2003.

In the five-day game Warne sits on 517 wickets, only 10 behind Muttiah Muralitharan's new world-record tally of 527. But even if Australia's two-Test series against Zimbabwe proceeds as scheduled, an event that looks increasingly unlikely by the hour, Warne doesn't fancy his chances of ever surpassing Murali.

"If the Test matches do go ahead I don't think I'll take too many wickets," Warne told reporters in Harare. "The quicks will do some damage. I honestly believe Murali will get somewhere between 900 and 1000 Test wickets. I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near that.

"I could play for another three, maybe four years. If I work on the same sort of theory then I might get 700. If I end up with the record, well, I'll have a beer to that."

While maintaining there is no such thing as a devalued Test wicket, Warne did note a certain incongruity in the fact that wickets captured in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket competition were not acknowledged in the record books - yet wickets taken by Sri Lankan bowlers against a fifth-string Zimbabwean XI are.

"Some of the best cricket that's ever been played was World Series Cricket," said Warne. "And those stats don't count but a five-for or a hundred or Sangakkara's 200 and Atapattu's 200 count as double-hundreds. So where's the balance?"